This application claims the priority of Japanese Patent Applications No. 11-375579 filed on Dec. 28, 1999, and No. 2000-292964 filed on Sep. 26, 2000, which are incorporated herein by reference.
The present invention relates to an antibacterial property imparting glass composition, an antibacterial fiber, an antibacterial twisted yarn and an antibacterial cloth.
In four seasons in our country (Japan), there is the circumstance in which bacteria tend to grow. In particular, under a high temperature and high humidity in the summer season and the rainy season, the growth of microorganism becomes active. For that reason, people is suffering from sudamen, athlete""s foot, bedsore and uncomfortable smell in many cases. With diversification of a life style, fiber products having microorganism controlling ability which inhibit or sterilize harmful microorganism growing in clothes, that is, antibacterial fiber products treated with so-called antibacterial and anti-smell processing have spread.
For example, there is an antibacterial fiber product complexed with an inorganic antibacterial agent, for example, zirconium phosphate loaded with silver, silver zeolite, soluble glass or the like. In particular, a soluble glass refers collectively to glasses having the adjusted composition from a viewpoint of the physical and chemical properties of a glass so that the glass has the controlled dissolving rate, and soluble glasses containing a silver, copper or zinc compound having antibacterial property are known as a glass which can dissolve out the above silver, copper or zinc ion at the predetermined rate for a few hours to a few years. Dissolved out silver, copper and zinc ions are adsorbed on a cell membrane of bacteria or microorganism, or concentrated in the cells, which inhibits the growth of bacteria or microorganism and exerts the antibacterial action by so-called oligodynamic action.
Since antibacterial fibers containing the above inorganic antibacterial agent such as a soluble glass and the like have many chances to contact with water and a detergent by washing or the like, the antibacterial effects can not be retained and there is also a problem that the antibacterial effects are lowered by post-processing (processing after complexed with an antibacterial agent, for example, acid treatment, alkali treatment and the like) such as fiber staining. For that reason, a large amount of an antibacterial agent is necessary to be added and, when the amount to be added is increased, not only it becomes high cost but also there arises easily a problem of discoloration due to silver or the like contained in an inorganic antibacterial agent and, thus, it is not preferable from a viewpoint of appearances.
An object of the present invention is to provide an antibacterial property imparting glass composition which can, at a small amount, impart high antibacterial durability to water, a detergent, post-processing with staining or the like, an antibacterial fiber using the same, an antibacterial twisted yarn and an antibacterial cloth.
In order to solve the above object, an antibacterial property imparting glass composition of the present invention is characterized in that Ag2O is contained, at 0.1-5.0% by weight, in a glass composition containing 45-67 mol % of P2O5, 5-20 mol % of Al2O3, and 1-40 mol % of 1 or 2 or more selected from MgO, CaO and ZnO. In addition, an antibacterial fiber of the present invention is characterized in that the antibacterial property imparting glass composition is complexed with a synthetic fiber or a natural fiber.